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-   -   LAM Mozambique flight crashed... (https://www.pprune.org/african-aviation/528841-lam-mozambique-flight-crashed.html)

JanetFlight 29th Nov 2013 19:14

LAM Mozambique flight crashed...
 
From their site:

Comunicado: TM470 Maputo - Luanda

A LAM - Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique, S. A. informa que o voo TM 470 que partiu do Aeroporto Internacional de Maputo às 11:26 horas de hoje, dia 29 de Novembro de 2013, com destino a Luanda, capital Angolana, tinha sua aterragem prevista para as 14: 10H, horas locais. Seguem a bordo 28 passageiros e 6 tripulantes.

Informações obtidas dão indicação da aeronave ter aterrado em Rundo, norte da Namíbia, fronteira com Botswana e Angola.

Neste momento a LAM, autoridades aeronáutica e aeroportuária estão empenhados em estabelecer contactos com vista a confirmação da informação.

A LAM prestará mais informações à medida que as investigações forem decorrendo.


Para informações adicionais, contacte o Gabinete de Comunicação Institucional da LAM, através de Norberto Mucopa: 82 7846815 e Irina Matos: 825777946.

Maputo, 29 de Novembro de 2013

Basically they suspect the plane could be hijacked or landed at Rundo, or in a AFB...lets wait and pray for the best !

PS: EMB190 type MPM/LAD

WindSheer 29th Nov 2013 20:16

What was the origin and destination?

AIRWAY 29th Nov 2013 20:25

Maputo to Luanda.

1stspotter 29th Nov 2013 21:27

Story here
Mozambique passenger plane carrying 34 missing: airline

Does not look good. There was a press conference of Ministery of Transport of Mozambique. They believe crash or emergency landing near Rundu in Namibia. Authorities are searching. Due to heavy rain hard to search.

Super VC-10 29th Nov 2013 22:44

...and here

BBC News - Mozambique plane missing with 34 on board

1stspotter 29th Nov 2013 22:45

Press-Release: TM470 Maputo - Luanda
LAM - Mozambique Airlines, S. A. informs that its flight TM 470 departed from Maputo International Airport at 11:26 hours today, November 29, 2013, to Luanda, the Angolan capital, scheduled to arrive at 14: 10H, local Angola time has not arrived at its destination as scheduled.

Information obtained indicates that the flight has landed in a location in Northern Namibia, bordering Angola and Botswana near a place called Rundu. On board flight TM470 were 28 passengers and 6 crew members.

Currently LAM, Aeronautical and Airports authorities are establishing contacts with the authorities close to the location in order to confirm this information. LAM will provide updates as more information is obtained

JanetFlight 30th Nov 2013 04:10

Desaparecido avião das linhas aéreas de Moçambique - Expresso.pt

It seems that we can fear the worst by now, unfortunately...even LAM assumes the option of a forced land in the middle of the jungle, or even a crash. According last news no Namibian field received the E190.

No phone call made by any passenger or crew was also received...the WX in the zone its awful with violent thunderstorms and heavy rain, and the region where contact was lost its deep and dense forest...Lets keep fingers crossed...

andrasz 30th Nov 2013 08:20

The area where the plane went missing (The Caprivi strip) is not dense forest, it is a seasonal dry savanna / wetland, with patchy shrub and tree coverage, mainly grassland. In the rainy season (right now) the whole area turns into a water soaked bog which is practically inaccessible by any vehicle and very difficult to traverse even on foot.

I once did a helicopter landing on that kind of terrain, from the air it looks like nice terra firma, and even on touchdown one feels nothing special. As I got out, my feet immediately sank ankle deep into the soft ground. Looking around, the rear end of the skids already disappeared into the muck. Luckily we had enough power to get unstuck (otherwise the story would have had a very embarrassing ending) and I could direct the pilot to a harder patch some dozens of metres away, getting covered with mud knee deep in the process. I visited the same spot some months later and it was rock hard ground.

In case of a high energy impact the visible traces will be very similar to the Everglades Valuejet or Douala Air Kenya accidents - a water filled crater, barely distinguishable from other ponds littering the area, and a little floating and lighter debris thrown about.

The area has no mobile coverage aside the immediate areas of lodges and a few towers along the main road, so in case of a favorable outcome, if VHF is disabled survivors will have no means of communication until found.

1stspotter 30th Nov 2013 08:56

The nationalities of the passengers were made public by the airline:
27 passengers, of which: 10 Mozambicans, 9 Angolans, 5 Portuguese, 1 French, 1 Brazilian ,1 Chinese.

Nationalities of crew not made public

Naijajet 30th Nov 2013 09:25

Sadly Aircraft Found no survivors

ian16th 30th Nov 2013 10:00

Wreckage of Mozambican plane found | News24

If the Namibian Police are correct about the fire, it doesn't look as though it landed in water.

Newforest2 30th Nov 2013 10:43

ASN Aircraft accident Embraer ERJ-190AR C9-EMC Bwabwata National Park

Heathrow Harry 30th Nov 2013 11:27

BBC:_

Namibia finds Mozambique plane wreck, all on board dead



The wreckage of a Mozambique Airlines plane that disappeared over Namibia has been found, but none of the 34 people aboard survived the crash, police say.

The burned-out aircraft was found in the Bwabwata National Park, near the borders with Angola and Botswana.

"The plane has been completely burnt to ashes and there are no survivors," Namibia Police Force deputy commissioner Willy Bampton was quoted by Reuters as saying.


The plane left Mozambique on Friday.



Flight TM470 took off from the country's capital, Maputo, at 11:26 (09:26 GMT) and was due to arrive in the Angolan capital, Luanda, at 14:10.



The last contact made with the plane was when it was over northern Namibia.
The authorities say most of those on board were Mozambican or Angolan, and several more were Portuguese. The aircraft also carried one citizen from each of Brazil, China and France.


Initially, the airline said there were signs the aircraft might have landed near Rundu. But on Saturday, Mr Bampton said villagers in the area had heard an explosion.


"Botswana officials informed us that they saw smoke in the air and they thought the crash happened in their country, but when they came to the border they realised that it was in Namibia," Willie Bampton said.


The Bwabwata National Park in Namibia's Kavango East region - covering around 6,100sq km (2,355 square miles) - is a sparsely-populated area of dense forests.

The Ancient Geek 30th Nov 2013 13:32

Possibly weather related. There were thunderstorms in the area at the time and particularly vicous storms are common here in summer.

andrasz 30th Nov 2013 18:13

First site photo on The Namibian:
http://www.namibian.com.na/public/Th..._size=xlarge_l

Not much detail but it does appear that the plane came down relatively intact and with a low energy, and was destroyed by a post-impact fire.


Originally Posted by The Ancient Greek
...vicous storms are common here in summer...

...as they are in the European or US skies on any average hot summer afternoon. T-storms don't just bring down a modern jet mid-cruise, unless there is a mess-up of monumental proportions a la AF447.

Fabiol 1st Dec 2013 02:40

Its pretty weird and dont cease to "amaze" me how we can read more than 3 pages of a mere A343 PIC retirement&low pass, and now an entire fully modern was lost with all onboard, in very strange conditions, and it seems no one cares here...could it be the case (just a silly thinking of myself) that if it was in another continent we would be reaching now the 23 pages?

The Ancient Geek 1st Dec 2013 08:25

Andraz:

You dont appreciate just how vicious storms can get in southern africa.
On the same day they had hailstones bigger than cricket balls in Joburg, think what those could do to an engine. Pure speculation at this stage of course but these storms have a well deserved reputation, historically several aircraft have been literally torn apart in them. A double flameout is not beyond the realms of possibility and would be consistent with the apparant low energy of the crash.

Machinbird 1st Dec 2013 13:30

The following accident might be a model for what happened, although the altitudes are different.
Southern Airways Flight 242 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fabiol
Get more information from the accident site into the news and then watch the fur fly.
With so little information, what can one really say?

andrasz 1st Dec 2013 14:37

TAG

I do not doubt for one minute the nastiness of those storms, I have experienced their wrath myself. All I'm saying is that a modern airliner with wx radar and satellite forecasting has no business being anywhere near them. If in the end this does prove to be the cause, most likely it will not be the storms at fault...

cskafan123 1st Dec 2013 15:38


All I'm saying is that a modern airliner with wx radar and satellite forecasting has no business being anywhere near them
Having a wx radar and know how to interpret it is a whole new subject. Sadly not enough training is done these days regarding the interpretation of the radar.

Admiral346 1st Dec 2013 16:10

I have thought about a double engine failure also, but on the AVHerald a ROD of 6000 fpm is reported. That would fit a high level glide, maintaining a constant machnumber. I get rates of 4-5000 fpm in that regime descending on mach .80 with idle (Level change mode). If you subtract the idle power, and consider that my plane is usually loaded a lot heavier, 6000 for a light 190 (30pax) seems to make sense.
That stops, though, when reaching trnsition to IAS, then the rate reduces significantly to about 1500 fpm at IAS 250 at 10.000'. Maintaining a rate of 6000fpm would definetly overspeed the aircraft.

So maybe that information is faulty, or is an average overall or is the initial ROD.

Andrasz:

...as they are in the European or US skies on any average hot summer afternoon. T-storms don't just bring down a modern jet mid-cruise
Well,... the largest TS I have seen were in Africa, cruising at FL350 the thing looks the same distance up as it does down, they dwarf our european TS.
By far the meanest, though, are the ones in NAmerica. Absolutley deadly. Just look at all the tornadoes they get over there...

I do hope they find the reasons for this crash soon, I fly the same type and am worried about anything immanent to the system. Icing of engines has made news (Boeing - GE) recently and this was no inflight breakup in a TS. It hit in one piece, as far as I can interpret the pictures of the crashsite.

henra 1st Dec 2013 16:34


Originally Posted by Fabiol (Post 8181861)
Its pretty weird and dont cease to "amaze" me how we can read more than 3 pages of a mere A343 PIC retirement&low pass, and now an entire fully modern was lost with all onboard, in very strange conditions, and it seems no one cares here...

Hmmm, I'm not sure it is because no one cares.
It is probably rather down to the fact that we know so little at this point in time and there are no 'default' ways to get a modern airliner to crash down from cruise altitude. There have been only very few such instances and they didn't follow a pattern (unlike CFIT in non-precision approaches).
So probably everyone as puzzled as myself. Here's definitely waiting for facts.

flash8 1st Dec 2013 17:06


and it seems no one cares here...
Not UK, Europe, Russia, North America or Australasia....

Romeo E.T. 1st Dec 2013 17:45

Namibian TV


Christodoulidesd 1st Dec 2013 17:49

Charming :ugh: He almost sounds happy about the crash.

andrasz 1st Dec 2013 18:20

AVH now has some better photos of the crash site, the debris field is long and narrow, and the bulk of the burnt-out fuselage is in one compact place suggesting that it might have been an attempted emergency landing with some level of control. This makes a structural failure in a TS updraft scenario less likely.

1stspotter 1st Dec 2013 19:46

Here is another short video showing the crash site


henra 1st Dec 2013 19:47


Originally Posted by andrasz (Post 8181227)
Not much detail but it does appear that the plane came down relatively intact and with a low energy, and was destroyed by a post-impact fire.

Hmm, from the Video and Pictures I have seen I fail to see a low energy Impact, tbh.


These small aircraft are usually structurally quite strong and in the pics and vids I see serious destruction. To me it Looks more like a medium to high energy Impact.

The Ancient Geek 1st Dec 2013 23:23


but on the AVHerald a ROD of 6000 fpm is reported.
Bear in mind that this is a radar observation at a fairly long range so it would represent high altitude conditions, most probably the initial departure from cruise level.

VFD 2nd Dec 2013 01:18

There are just a lot of questions here.
The decent rate would almost indicate a pressurization issue.
The O2 bottles for the masks could have been empty.
Hail could have damaged the windscreen until failure injuring or incapacitating the pilots, although pretty unlikely.
Fire but seems unlikely with O2 available for the pilots and few minutes to terra firma at 6,000ft/min.
I find it interesting no radio calls were made declaring an emergency and it appears there was an issue controlling the aircraft even at lower altitude even if the pilots were in conscious, the crash remains appear to be from a pretty fast speed on relatively flat ground.

Machinbird 2nd Dec 2013 02:41


These small aircraft are usually structurally quite strong and in the pics and vids I see serious destruction. To me it Looks more like a medium to high energy Impact.
There are two things I see here. Relatively large pieces of wreckage from throughout the aircraft mixed with smaller chunks. Some of them relatively tough items like landing gear.

Big chunks generally means relatively low speed. A ballpark guess would be around 150 knots.

Extensive breakup then means a bad ground interface, probably wing down or without a flare. Perhaps hit an obstacle. I would be surprised if it was over 180 knots worst case.

The higher the energy of impact, the smaller the chunks. Sometimes the aft pieces of the aircraft are larger because of deceleration caused by the front part of the aircraft being broken up. Fuel flowing out of fractured tanks can caused localized destruction as it tumbles parts along.

Hopefullly the recorders can be read and we will have solid data beyond my poor efforts.

Nemrytter 2nd Dec 2013 03:32

Looking at some satellite data and their most likely flight-path it seems they passed close to (or through) a Cb that was growing incredibly fast: In the space of 15 minutes the top of the Cb went from around FL295 to FL410. Unfortunately it would have been that 15 minutes that they flew near it, so it'll be interesting to see what role, if any, that played. It's one of the fastest growing (and shortest lived) storms I've seen there.
Based on past experience it also seems to be the type of Cb that produces ICI, but I can't understand how that alone would cause an accident as, in the space of about 5nm, the cloud totally disappears and the crew would've been in VMC again. They managed to continue for another 60nm or so, all in decent visibility. Is the Cb just a conicidence or did it have some effect?

In short: Haven't a clue, it's puzzling.

andrasz 2nd Dec 2013 06:58


Originally Posted by henra
I fail to see a low energy Impact

My initial comment was based on the first released photo, in the mean time more became available. I agree with the analysis of Machinbird, this looks like a shallow angle, relatively low speed crash-landing that went wrong in the final phases. Whether the aircraft was under or out of control at time of ground contact will be a key question, recorders should provide a quick answer on that. In any case, the wreckage path together with the ROD info available pretty much rules out an out of control free-fall type scenario.

190_warrior 2nd Dec 2013 08:24

They were at FL380 which is damn near the ceiling for the Ejet at that gross weight (assuming they were carrying through fuel). Speaking from experience here, they would have been near coffin corner but not right at the edge. You do get the PLIs really quick at that altitude so plenty of time to react. Plus, it was daytime. Personally I think WX is unlikely here.

It sounded similar to the B737 problem of the rudder going hard over as they were commencing initial approach. A sudden partial or total loss of control could explain a ROD of 6000fpm and no communication from the crew :bored: That's my two cents worth, although mind you, I REALLY hope I am wrong on this one.

torquemada60 2nd Dec 2013 09:36

The Villager-Flight TM470: Only one body intact

:ugh:

answer=42 2nd Dec 2013 12:15

@torquemada60
Thank you for the link to The Villager. This article, a generally good piece of journalism, tells us a few things:
- There had been a communication from the cockpit to Botswana ATC
- The communication identified weather-related problems
- The crash site is possibly fairly close to Rundu airfield. Could there have been an attempted landing?
- The article reminds us that LAM is banned from EU airspace.

I note that, formally, the flight ban relates to issues concerning national oversight rather than any issues specific to LAM. However, casual observation at Maputo, Mozambique, reveals what, to the untrained eye, appear to be interesting landing manoeuvres.

reason for edit: correct stupid error pointed out by next poster.

GarageYears 2nd Dec 2013 12:43

@answer=42

That would be LAM...

The Ancient Geek 2nd Dec 2013 14:35

190 warrior:
A double flameout at cruise level could cause a pressurisation problem and justify a 6000fpm dive down to breathable air.

How well does the 190 glide one it gets down to decent air ?
How easy would a restart be, in some engines a flameout can result in temporary bearing siezure due to uneven cooling and it cannot be restarted until the temperatures in the engine equalise to free it up.

It would be interesting to know if the engines were actually turning when it crashed, this is an easy one for the investigation to determine.

190_warrior 2nd Dec 2013 15:34

well, with the oxygen mask on during an emergency descent you can still communicate pretty easily. The mask has an inbuilt mic that works pretty well. If the mask wasnt on, well...that's a different story.

As for an engine flameout, it's pretty straightforward. All you do is disconnect the autothrottle and move the thrust levers to idle. The entire engine relight sequence is automatic and controlled by the FADEC. That is, provided you have at least 7.2% N2 rotation, which at 6000fpm, would not be an issue. Even the RAT deployment is automatic, so I'd be interested to know whether or not is was out at impact.

As for the glide, only ever done one in the sim (thankfully) and it may not have too much range, but it is still controllable. It can be a pain because you lose the fly-by-wire, but without extreme column movements it can be done.

lomapaseo 2nd Dec 2013 20:05

I don't understand th reason for the discussion about engine flameout in this thread. :confused:

The picture of the engine certainly don't look like it had flamed out.


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